And me, well, I'm reeling from one of the more insane weeks on record. My son is being held together with super glue for the skin, I'm an art fool failure and a sucker for Pomeranians that are about to be run over on my street, and the only thing that has enabled me to giggle uncontrollably at this point - aside from our family Zamboni fetish - is this video:

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Husband: "I think we should get a Zamboni." Me: "Where would we PARK it?" Husband: "On the street in front of the house."

Welcome to my world, ladies and gents.

This is how we get into the winter Olympic games in my house. We watch it around and through the Mardi Gras parades passing through our 'hood. We check out the athletes' performances, comment on all sorts of quirks shown on camera (Is it me, or do the Americans in the freestyle ski events and the snowboarding events look like they're wearing pajamas? What the hell does Johnny Weir have to do to get a medal - this without the words? Why do they have to keep showing Shaun White knocking his chin on the edge of the snowboarding halfpipe?), and then, with all the ice dancing we've been seeing for the past couple of days, it came down to the Zamboni.

NBC switched away from the resurfacing duet the Zambonis were doing on the ice to give us the medal count, and I found myself crying, "Noooooo!" to the TV. Dan came home from a band rehearsal shortly afterwards, I told him about NBC's switcheroo, and that's when Dan made the suggestion that we get a Zamboni.

We have a mutual history of going to hockey games in our youthful days and cheering the loudest for the Zamboni man (yes, it was always a man...Zamboni women, lemme know if you, too, are doing the resurfacing thing) as he trolled slowly across the ice between the periods. The operator that passed 'round the rink where I watched my college games would have such fun with it, developing a Miss America wave as he expertly twirled the steering wheel of the machine with his other hand. Dan and his pals would chide the machine at his college's hockey games when it rolled off the ice and left behind some detritus: "Ewww, Zamboni shit!" When we visited the Redwood Empire Ice Arena built by Charles & Joyce Schulz, we had to purchase a mini-Zamboni for the little guy, which he still treasures. Suffice it to say, for those of you wondering why my first question concerned where to park the thing rather than, "Are you insane???", we are a family with a liking for the creation of a man who had to get the ice of his rink smooth without it taking an hour and a half to do so.

So of course, the next question I had was: what could we do with the damn thing other than have it grace the gray brick road in front of our house? What if...

...you just park the zamboni on the street until next Mardi Gras and then clear the ladders and chairs from intersections?

Hmmmm...

If the Zamboni only goes up to 9 mph maximum, it'd also be perfect for pulling floats.

I'm seeing a new Mardi Gras parade tradition taking shape that'll help with the ladders, chairs, and indiscriminate roping-off of parade watching territory while still bringing the fun.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Health-wise, I've felt the best I have in a long while - nothing respiratory is plaguing me, I can breathe through my nose all right, and there are no noticeable extra aches and pains. All of that seems to have passed on to my husband, who wakes each morning coughing and hacking away, something that gets better as the day goes on...at least, it got better enough to enable my husband to sing a beautiful solo at the synagogue in Mobile, Alabama, Saturday night.

The performance of Jewish songs and liturgy we participated in attracted all sorts of folks in the Mobile community, and not just the Jewish folk. One fellow went up to my husband afterwards and asked him about the significance of the sanctuary's architecture. "Why IS all the seating arranged to angle downwards from the pulpit instead of upwards, like stadium seating?" he was asked. Good question.

Dan's answer, even though he wasn't a member of the temple in Mobile? "The architect designed it that way."

It's true. There's no hard and fast rules for how a synagogue should look, necessarily. The only requirements that have developed over the centuries are that the synagogue must have an aron ha-kodesh, a holy ark, in which to store the Torah scrolls that are read from every Shabbat, and that the congregation must be facing in the direction of Jerusalem, something that got thrown out the window for a while in Reform Jewish temple architecture and was returned to in recent years as Reform Jewish congregations reclaimed more of the ritual present in more halakhically observant sects of Judaism. The orthodox Jewish shuls still maintain separate seating for men and women, either with the use of a mechitzah - a separating barrier of some sort - or a balcony for the women. But, aside from those requirements, pretty much anything goes.

I grew up in a synagogue with a sanctuary that had an aron so tall the curtains had to be opened by pushing a button (things are always done bigger in Texas), and I've been in synagogues that were in shopping centers until their facilities could be built. I've been in the many-columned great room of a synagogue-turned-church in Toledo, Spain, with the incongruous, now-I'm-a-museum-to-the-history-of-what-the-Inquisition-drove-out name of Santa Maria la Blanca Sinagoga (The one thing about synagogues is, once they have become churches, they can't be reconsecrated as synagogues. Thanks, Fernando and Isabel. Thanks loads.). I've been in some huge temples and some small ones: the one in my great-grandparents' neighborhood in Brooklyn was about the size of our apartment here. Size doesn't matter, so long as you can have at least ten people in there for a worship service.

The inspiration for decorations and structure tends to be borrowed from many sources: not just the Tanakh, but also the use of words in Islamic mosque decorations and the use of stained glass in churches and cathedrals (the use of which is sometimes thought to be borrowed from some pieces of colored glass in window niches in early mosques). And then there are the quirky decorations, like the huge tapestry of a somewhat abstract flaming bird that once formed the centerpiece of a local sanctuary and covered the aron in that sanctuary as well. Dan once whispered to me in the middle of a service that the tapestry reminded him of a turkey, with the Torah as its giblets, causing me to never see that thing the same ever, ever again. That was a synagogue design faux pas if ever there was one.

As for the sanctuary in Mobile, I don't know why the architect made that choice of having the seating angling downward from the bimah, or pulpit. The reasoning posited was probably to raise the Torah physically up higher than the congregation or some such thing...but that can be done without angling all the seating like that. If anyone knows what the reasoning would be, I'd be interested in finding out.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Some impressions of communications during Carnival 2010 are up and at 'em from me over at Humid City...and they apply to all seasons and all times, not just to Mardi Gras.

But now, Mardi Gras is over and done with for this year. Decorations have been put away until the next Twelfth Night comes 'round. I still must deal with two bags of throws in the trunk of my car, the stuff garnered from the beginning of the Krewe of Thoth's parade near our pal Pacrac's place. Things'll be calm for a bit, 'til Purim rolls around and then, in my 'hood, St Patrick's Day. There's always going to be something, but there won't be much that'll hold a candle to Lombardi Mardi Gras for quite a while.

And, finally, we're heading into that weekend before Mardi Gras day. Tonight is a (gasp!) four-parade night due to the weather and the scheduling of the parades. Bundle up, hell is still freezing over. And pace yourselves out there.

And as a person who remembers when there was a parade or two every night the week before Mardi Gras day, I agree with the yaller blogger's tangent on parade scheduling. It would certainly go easier on a friend of mine in the NOPD and his buddies, who've had to work some major amounts of overtime compressed into just a few days.

I also can't get this outta my head:

To think, we coulda schlepped over to Lucy's to eat that night. It would have blown my son's mind even more, which was already blown by seeing Drew Brees atop that Bacchus float.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

You are invited to the 4th Annual Carnival Ball of theKREWE OF PANCAKES AND SYRUP

"The krewe with the edible doubloons"

Where: Our House (email me at liprap2@netscape.net for directions)

When: Mardi Gras Day (that‟s Tuesday, February 16, 2010) from 8am until we get tired of it allWhat: Pancakes, and lots of 'em (maybe some syrup, too)Who: YouWhy: We can‟t eat all those pancakes by ourselvesKrewe Fees: We're supplying pancakes, syrup, coffee, milk, juice, and probably Leigh's homemade king cake, so bring whatever* else you want to eat, drink, and share with others between 8am and whenever – that's what we like to call a “potluck”.Specialty Throws: In honor of the Saints, we will have our own limited edition black and gold doubloons... and they'll taste good, too!Honorary Krewe Royalty: King… Cain C. RuppQueen… Pat O. ButterNeed to get ahold of me? Email me at liprap2@netscape.net

* food disclaimer: please bring something other than pork, shellfish, catfish, or anything that mixes milk and meat in the same dish.“Religious” disclaimer… We started this because we like pancakes, always make too many of them, don’t want to give up our parking spots for Mardi Gras, and like company. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Christian tradition of observing Shrove Tuesday or “Pancake Day” by making and eating pancakes, which we didn’t learn about until a couple of years ago. Of course, if we were the NFL, we’d file suit and demand royalties from anyone else who eats pancakes on a Tuesday, but we aren’t the NFL, so we’ll just let it slide.

How big a deal is this for us? Well, you can go by what my husband the Niners fan was trying to say about it to my father-in-law over the phone the other night: It's like everybody is back in high school and holding pep rallies! Or you can just read a synopsis of the Saints' long and tortured history here.

I'll probably take some shit for this, but I've gotta admit that while I want it for these Saints so badly I can taste it, ultimately I feel like I've already experienced about five Super Bowls this year. And as a result, I can't imagine being pissed off or disappointed in the least if by some chance the Saints don't end up winning it all.

Which isn't to say that I don't care what happens in Miami. Of course I do. Clearly the Saints themselves have the "right" attitude about it when they say things like "We've come all this way, we've gotta win the thing now." Hell yeah, no question about it. This team has had the right attitude about everything all year, no reason to expect any different now.

But as a fan, these Saints have already given me much more than I could reasonably have expected or asked for. 8-0. Demolishing the Mighty Patriots on national tee vee. 13-0. Two consecutive playoff wins against Hall of Fame quarterbacks. An NFC Championship, a Super Bowl berth, and looking ahead, the shortest offseason ever. By far. It's already more than enough for me.

Do I want the championship? Fuck yeah I want it. But not for me. I want it for them.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

I saw this yesterday in the wilds of Carrollton and crept closely and quietly so as not to scuttle the felines of the area and scare off this truly unique species of campaign boosterism. The photograph you see before you is the result.

So far as I know, this is the only one of its kind. If it has a mate somewhere out there, it bodes well for this sign's survival. Otherwise, it will indeed become a vanishing animal.

If there are any others, please let me know. Perhaps if we throw the both of them in a garage together, many smaller signs will appear.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

When I'm not geeking out over on Twitter and/or posting away over here, I'll be throwing a little bit of motherhood/womanhood/whatever-the-hell-hood into the mix over there. And the first weekly installment has begun with this post concerning the prejudice within me and the little guy. It's been nagging at me quite a bit in the midst of all the Saints/election/Mardi Gras mania in these strange and beautiful days.

Oh, almost forgot...speaking of prejudice, seriously reconsider voting for this guy unless he has demonstrably changed....and as to that, I wish I'd been able to take a picture of the trailer I saw covered with "The East for John Georges" signs I saw on St Charles near Jefferson Ave yesterday - plastered atop one of the signs was one saying "Brought to you by JACKASS".